Filmmaker Spike Lee had criticised Tarantino for the liberal use of the word 'n-----' in his film Django Unchained. But Tarantino later defended its use in his slavery-era spaghetti western saying: "If somebody is out there actually saying when it comes to the word ‘n-----,’ the fact that I was using it in the movie more than it was being used in the antebellum south in Mississippi, then feel free to make that case. But no one's actually making that case. They are saying I should lie, that I should whitewash, that I should massage, and I never do that when it comes to my characters."